Home Secretary Theresa May has officially declared that she is running for Conservative Party leader and UK Prime Minister, despite a record on immigration that could put many voters off.
Theresa May has been Home Secretary since 2010, during which time immigration – a policy over which she had direct responsibility – has risen to record levels, helping fuel the resentment that led many Brits to back Brexit in last week’s referendum.
To compound her problems, she then backed ‘Remain’ in the European Union (EU) referendum, a position that would have made it difficult if not impossible to get immigration back under control.
The Conservatives came to power in 2010 promising to reduce net immigration to the “tens of thousands”. The figure in 2010 was 252,000 – a record at the time, however the record would soon be broken over and over again.
Under Theresa May’s watch, that figure rose to 336,000 in 2015, with 42 per cent of new arrivals coming from the EU – showing the importance of getting EU migration under control.
However, as Breitbart London had earlier suggested, the Office for National Statistics confirmed last May that the real figure was in fact much higher after it revealed that it had not counted “short-term” EU migrants.
Had they been taken into account, the real migration figure would have been around 470,000, smashing all previous records and demonstrating the government’s unwillingness to grapple with the problem.
Theresa May then threw her support behind the ‘Remain’ campaign, despite it being apparent that Britain would be unlikely ever to reduce immigration while it remained a member of the EU.
Mrs May is now one of five candidates to replace David Cameron, and is presently the bookies’ favourite, although the level of her support among the party’s ordinary activists remains largely unknown.
A YouGov poll published last night put her in first place among the membership, but only with 36 per cent. Once her failure on immigration becomes more widely known, support may flood to an alternative candidate.